


Denim Jeans and Swords and Shields

by Euleogy



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Crossroads, F/M, How many different ways can I fuck up the fade?, I'm bad at this, Magic - Freeform, Modern Character in Thedas, Modern Girl in Thedas, Nuclear Fallout - Freeform, The Fade, There will probably be pain, This is pretty much just straight up a self insert, and SMUT, no promises though
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-09
Updated: 2017-01-17
Packaged: 2018-07-22 11:43:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7436722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Euleogy/pseuds/Euleogy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She was once a 21 year old nobody, just getting ready to be an adult. Then, she was ripped from her home, given a fate she never wanted, a life she hadn't dreamed of. She wants to go home, she wants answers, she wants to stay alive. Despite a rough start, she just might live to tell her own story, someday.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Pokemon No!

**Author's Note:**

> I make no promises with this... creation.

          “Only…. A little farther….”

          It was only mile 3… that day. I didn’t really care though, according to my phone, there was an Eevee just at the top of the hill in my neighbourhood. I was on my way back to my house when it’d popped up. Now, I was hiking up said hill, all for a stupid Pokémon… a Pokémon that wasn’t even technically real. I honestly didn’t even care, I adored Eevee.

          A flick of my wrist, and the little ball flew up and bounced off the little pixel character on my phone’s screen, the creature overlaid onto whatever my phone was pointed at.

          “Boink! And I have another Eevee! Worth it~!”

          My voice was a sing song as I trotted back down the hill, praying that I didn’t trip and have to hobble home and try to explain to my parents why a 21-year-old was climbing around like a 5 year old to catch Pokémon. Nope, not a conversation I wanted to deal with. It was as I was trotting down the hill that I noticed a ‘nearby Pokémon’ on the radar’s footstep count, and it just went up. I stopped in my tracks, turned around, and looked back up the hill.

          “….Fuck it. I want it.”

          Hiking back up the hill, I watched as the footprint went down to one, looking at the map for the tell-tale leaf-splashing that meant there were hiding Pokémon. Seeing none, I kept walking up the hill. At the end of the road, the hill continued into the dirt, rock, and plant life that was native to Utah’s wilderness. I stood in front of the metal road block before looking back down at my phone. I still had 40% of my battery. I could just stay out. It’s not like my dad couldn’t use his phone to see right where I was anyway. So, I climbed over the metal barrier, climbing over the small hill of rock and dirt that the trucks had dumped there years ago when the development was first built.

          It wasn’t long before I was sick of this. The Pokémon was hovering at one footprint. Usually it would have gone up or down by now. I did, however, see a little splash of leaves just a bit farther, head down the other side of the hill. It was starting to get a bit dark out, but it was toward the end of Summer, so that just meant it was around 8. I wasn’t worried, and it wasn’t like home wasn’t just over the hill behind me. I traipsed around, avoiding the towering thistle and other spindly plants surrounding me, heading straight for that little splash of leaves. Once I got to the little animation on the map, I found a rock to sit on. It would take a minute or so for the game to have the Pokémon materialize on the screen.

          Sure enough, with a little smoke-like animation, two Pokémon poofed into view. It was an Abra, and… I wasn’t sure what the other was. It looked like a little green ghost. I already had a couple of Abra at this point though, so I tapped on the little green dude. Instead of zooming in on the ghost like it usually did, it flashing straight to the poke ball screen, the little red and white orb rocking back and forth. In time with the rocking, my phone started to vibrate. That was new. Had the game updated while I was stalking around in the wilds of my backyard? I didn’t know that was possible without the app restarting.

          The vibrating increased, to the point that I set my phone down on the rock I’d just been sitting on. It buzzed loudly against the stone, before bouncing off the side, screen down. In a small panic I picked it up. When it fell, the vibrating had stopped. Flipping it over in my hand showed a black screen. With a small expletive, I pressed multiple buttons, but nope, it seemed like my phone was dead.

          “What the fuck? How does that even happen?”

          Maybe the odd vibrating just… used all my battery? I had an iPhone, it wouldn’t be the first time something had shot the battery down suddenly before. Usually it wasn’t more than 5-10% at a time though. I sighed and slipped the hunk of metal into my jeans pocket, trudging back up the hill to my neighbourhood.

          Cresting the brown dirt pile, and looking down where my neighbourhood should have been revealed no life. Just a continuation of the desert. I furrowed my brow and spun around on top of the small hill. I could see at least half a mile in every direction, and all I saw was expansive stretching desert.

          “How is that even possible? I know I didn’t walk that far, I’m way too much of a fat ass.”

          I stood there, spinning slowly in disbelief before finding another rock to sit on while I tried to decide what to do. My phone was dead, I had no idea where to go to get home, I had no supplies. The smart thing would be to just sit here until rescue. Looking around though, I knew there was no way I was that far from home. I must’ve just crested that hill, farther. It was still ‘behind’ where I’d been, and I couldn’t see past it, so that was probably it, I was just too focused on that stupid leaf animation to pay closer attention. Thanks, Niantic.

          So, I trudged down the opposing side of the small hill, and climbed this bigger one. It was steep. Steeper than the previous hill. I actually found the closer I got to the top, the harder it got. I was sure I hadn’t climbed down this hill, but at the least, it was a better vantage point, for me and for anyone searching for me. By now the sun had started to fade behind the horizon, and I could already hear various insects starting to chirp. I was going to get eaten alive tonight.

          Reaching the top of this hill, and using my sneakers to stomp on the base of a thistle bush, pressing it out of the way enough for me to crest the top without getting scratched, I climbed over the last boulder, climbing on top. It was just typical that this wouldn’t have helped at all. Yeah, I could see farther than before, but all I saw was more desert, and let me tell you, the salt flats are a lie. Utah’s desert just looks like overgrown fallow land.

          It would follow, of course, that in my idiocy of standing on top of a boulder and spinning, I’d of course lose my balance and manage to fall. I will say I fell with the grace the likes of which the America’s Next Top Model judges would be proud of. I will also be lying. Remember that bush I stomped over to climb onto this boulder? Well, it broke my fall. I cried out, both in fear terror and pain as the branches and leaves of the thistle bush poked right through my clothes like they weren’t even there. Of course, my momentum didn’t stop there.

          Which the force of a great typhoon, I rolled down that steep hill I’d spent the better part of 20 minutes climbing. I could feel various plants scratching, and in the case of thistle, tearing at my clothes and skin. I could feel various odd shaped rocks and dirt piles slamming into my arms, legs, and torso. In a moment of clarity, I wrapped my arms around my head, tears already streaming down my cheeks.

          That’s my last memory. I must’ve blacked out somewhere down the hill. I probably bashed my head on a rock at the bottom or something. I figure I mustn’t’ve blacked out until a moment or two after my last memory. Supposedly that’s how that usually works, you don’t remember the moment right before blacking out from trauma. Just the terrifying moments leading up to it apparently.


	2. Mystery Location

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is very short, and I'm sorry about that, but I ran out of things to write about for this, and I wanted to have this chapter solely consist of her current predicament.

          When I woke up, it was in no desert that I could recognize. Not only was it on the chilly side, but there was a thick fog shrouding the landscape. The sunlight, while it was dim, still managed to reflect off this fog in a way that… hurt. There was a hum underlying the area as well, and it reverberated in my ears and down my spine. It was only minutes after I awoke in this place that I began to feel nauseous. Those minutes had been spent looking around, discovering my surroundings. There was nothing overly fantastic about the area. The local flora was all dead or dying, while the fauna appeared to be completely lacking. I didn’t even hear birdsong, though whether or not any bird’s song would have been able to cut through the incessant hum was anyone’s guess.

 

          If you asked me how long I spent in this… place, I couldn’t tell you. I would say it was within the first hour or so that I did manage to pull out my phone. It was still dead, still black, no more useful that a moderately reflective black rock. It was put back into my pocket and forgotten about, its use expired when it’s battery had given up its last breath in a tremor on a rock in a desert.

 

          I did bite back the nausea and attempt to explore, but my feet always returned to the same place I started; a small rock, next to a dead tree, across a beaten path, in front of a large mirror. It didn’t help that I felt so ill, so tired, and so out of balance while I was there. I would swear that hum just kept growing and growing, irritating my already frayed and terrified nerves as the reality of my situation slowly began to dawn on me. I was more than lost. Utah wasn’t exactly known for its fog, especially not in the ever present heat of Summer.

 

          The sun in this sky did not move. The fog along the ground did not move. Whenever I tried, it seemed that I did not move. I couldn’t eat, because I didn’t have anything to eat. It didn’t seem to matter though, I never felt hungry, just bored. I couldn’t sleep, because I had the hum reverberating around my skull. It didn’t seem to matter though, because I never felt sleepy, just weary.

 

          In my boredom, I talked to myself. I made promises to any deity that would listen, promises of servitude, chastity, gratefulness, a change of lifestyle, anything that would send me home to my parents. None of it worked. Whatever way I had gotten here, it seemed I wouldn’t be leaving. I pondered whether or not I was dead. Maybe I’d fallen down that hill, hit my head hard enough to do serious damage, and woken up in the afterlife. The Greeks believed in that plain of death, didn’t they? Maybe this was a similar concept. Here, dead girl, have a small clearing with a mirror, because that’s what all girls want, giant fucking mirrors.

 

          I stole a stick from the tree. It was dead, it wouldn’t miss it. I would draw in the dirt path, clear it, and redraw. I would sing whatever I could remember, albeit badly. I would make up stories about the origins of the stupidest knock knock jokes, just for a lack of material, and to distract from talking about my current predicament. It was in the midst of one of these stories that there was noise other than the hum that usually invaded my thoughts whenever I stopped making sound.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One of the hardest parts about writing Dragon Age fanfic is the lack of canon ancient history. I like my fanfics to be canon, and it's very hard to do when one has to make things up, damn it. Bioware, get your writing together, please. Also, one guess as to where she is.


	3. Well, shit.

         “…-riorating. Eventually this place will collapse in on itself.”

      “Who can say how old it is? For now it stands, and thus retains its value.”

      My heart pounded. People. I heard people, for the first time in what felt like weeks.

      “Hello?”

      My voice cracked from the lack of use, but abruptly, I heard the conversation stop. It remained silent for several more seconds before I couldn’t help myself.

      “No, no, please don’t be in my head, please be real. Be real!”

 

      I still didn’t hear anything. I started to run. I knew it wouldn’t take me anywhere, but I was in a panic. I needed to get to them. I didn’t know where they were but any direction was better than none. I couldn’t be alone; I couldn’t be trapped here. I couldn’t live like this anymore, if you could even call it living.

      I did head in the right direction though, miraculously. In hindsight, I might’ve subconsciously known which direction the sound came from, but to be honest, I think it was coincidence. I’d only run away from the creepy mirror, and they just happened to be in a beeline away from it. I probably shouldn’t have run toward them, strange people, strange place. I didn’t care about my safety though; I actually did think I was dead. It was the only conclusion that I thought made sense.

      I didn’t run into them. I almost ran into them. There’s a difference. Either way, this sprint ended in my ass on the ground, and two ladies with flaming hands glaring down at me.

 

      “Careful Inquisitor, we mayn’t be in the fade, but this could still be a demon.”

      “Who are you? How did you get here?”

 

      One of them was normal looking. Short hair in a messy ponytail, dark makeup. The yellow eyes were odd, but now-a-days contacts were a possibility. The other had some kind of prosthetic ears on, and face paint to look like some kind of intricate tattoos along her forehead and chin. I figured they had some sort of expensive pyrotechnics, but whatever gloves they were wearing were seamlessly attached somewhere.

      I had no answers to their questions. I… couldn’t remember my name. I hadn’t thought about it in so long, I must’ve just forgotten. That was normal, right?

 

      “I….I don’t remember… How do I not remember my **name**?”

 

      The only solution I could even begin to fathom was that I’d hit my head far harder than I thought. A concussion could make your perception of time… inaccurate, right? Obviously I’d just woken up, wandered a bit, and passed back out without remembering that part, and managed to wander into some sort of LARP session. They had amazing props, like the mirrors, trees, and flame-hands, but it was all perfectly understandable.

      So, I figured they were staying in character, but I needed help. Maybe they just didn’t realize just how bad off I was. I should just explain the situation to them, then they’ll help me get home.

 

      “Look, I tripped and I think I hit my head on a rock or something, I really need some help.”

      Each woman just eyed me suspiciously. This wasn’t getting me anywhere.

      “Please, if you could just help me get home, that’s all I want.”

      The yellow-eyed woman frowned,

      “That’s all you want? I’m sure. Inquisitor, I suggest we just ignore it.”

      It? Did she just call me an it?

      “I don’t know, Morrigan, if this is a demon, it’s not like any I’ve faced, and like you said, this ISN’T the fade…”

      “Look, I’m definitely not a ‘Demon’. I’m just a girl. I understand wanting to keep character, but I really need help here!”

 

      The elfie one seemed to make a decision because she put out her flame-hands. Obviously, she realized I wasn’t play acting or something, and that I really did need help. It was about time, really. I understand wanting an immersive LARP experience, but if someone needs actual medical attention you don’t offer them leeches!

      “I don’t sense anything magical about her, Morrigan. If she really is ill, then perhaps we should take her back to Skyhold.”

 

         She held out her hand, the Elfy one, I noticed it seemed to have a slightly glowing green to it. Perhaps that was the pyrotechnics, or at least part of them. I took it gratefully, ready to stand up and move on to this ‘Skyhold’, but unfortunately, I felt pain in my palm immediately, once our hands were clasped. In unison, we cried out, and would have jerked away from each other, but some force that neither of us could control had trapped us for several moments, before we both fell back, pained and exhausted.

 

         In shock, I looked down to my hand, to the source of my pain, only to abruptly thrust it away as if it was tainted, and to my view, it was tainted. I’d been through a lot, for my brain to comprehend. My hand now had an odd slash across it, my own skin puckered and pulled away, revealing a gap not in my hand, but seemingly into space. I don’t remember much else, because I blacked out for the second time in my life, much too close to the first.

  


* * *

  
  


         It was dark when I finally came to, staring up at wooden beams stretching under a thatch roof. The edge of the ceiling connected to stone walls. I couldn’t see much more than that from my position, laying on my back as I was. The first thing I noticed was that the ever-present hum I’d gotten used to in that… other place, was gone. The bright refracted light also seemed gone. All in all, I seemed to be in a normal place, finally. At least, as normal as can be expected, all things considered.

 

     The second thing I’d noticed was that I was laying on the floor. It was hard and cold, likely the same stone as the walls surrounded me. I was at least on a mat, so I supposed it was not-quite stone. A mat on top of stone, how kind of them. The third thing I noticed was that I was not alone. I turned my head to the side as I slowly woke up, reaching a hand to cradle my head, only to immediately hold it away from me again as I caught sight of the mark, marring my own hand.

 

         I sat up fully, looking at the faces around mine. There were the two women from before, an elf-man, a woman in a hood, a man…. a very attractive man, a woman in… shiny things, another woman in armor, and a…. small-framed person in a droopy hat.

 

         “Who are you?” This was the armored one. She had an odd accent, one I couldn’t place even remotely, but it was intoxica- NOPE. I stamped out that train of thought. How was I supposed to answer that question though? I didn’t know my NAME. I mean, I knew everything else about myself, but my name, it was gone.

 

         “Answer the question!” It was the same woman. I supposed she was the interrogator, and the rest were just observing. Well, fuck it, honesty, right?

 

         “I don’t remember my name.”

 

         It was quiet for a moment before a soft voice, from the Elven woman from earlier. She looked… much less healthy now. She honestly looked like shit, like she hadn’t been sleeping, probably not eating. She was a tad gray-er, there were obvious circles under her abnormally large eyes. I felt bad, as if I had done this to her.

 

         “If you don’t remember your name, then tell us who you _are_.”

 

         It was quiet. Several in the room looked uncomfortable at hearing her speak. I bit my lower lip. How would I describe… me?

 

         “I’m… I’m a nobody. I live with my parents. I don’t have siblings. I’m studying at school for my generals because I can’t even decide what to do with my life. My favorite color is indigo, I like DC, but the Marvel movies are good, my favorite food is probably sushi. I mean, there’s nothing particularly exciting about me.”

 

         “Movies?” That was the Armored one, again.

 

         “.... Right, you guys are probably staying in character….. For some reason. It’s…. Slang for plays.”

 

         “Your accent is odd. Where are you from? You have too much inflection for the Free Marches, and not enough for… Well, for just about anywhere else.” The hooded woman was watching, oddly intense. The question had come from the armored one.

 

         “My accent is… a mix of a Western accent, and a Pacific accent. It’s usually just called Mid-Western…I’m from…. uhm….Utah, or America, whichever.”

 

         I wasn’t… scared. I was intimidated, but I think that was the goal. I wasn’t sure what was even happening. My hand was aching, the man-elf was glaring at me. Actually, so was the other man. The hooded woman was… eyeing me like a predator. The elf-girl looked mostly just miserable. The boy’s head was tilted to the side, like he was intensely listening to something. The Armored woman looked angry and frustrated. The golden shiny-dressed woman, the last one, just looked… I don’t even know. She was just observing or something.

 

         “Questions and questions. Both sides but unspoken. Pain in a hand in a heart in a head. She’s lost but she doesn’t quite know it yet.”

 

         And I’ve now decided that the droopy hat kid is creepy. I didn’t have time to dwell on that before the man I formerly thought was handsome stepped in front of the armored lady. I noticed he had his own armor. I was still sitting on the floor.

 

         “What did you do? How did you take the mark? And why? Who sent you?”

 

         “I-.... I didn’t do anything? What mark? This thing **your elf girl**  put on my hand? I wasn’t sent, I was… I don’t know. I don’t _KNOW_!”

 

         At this point, all the confusion, and the pain, combined with the angry people. I broke down. I sobbed. I hung my head, and I couldn’t even hide my face properly without bringing my own hand near me. I wanted to go _home_.

 

         The droopy hat boy stepped in front of me, then he crouched, a hand under my chin, tiling my face to look at his.

 

         “Kidnapped, snatched, stolen. It’s okay, we fix things here. No, wait, that didn’t help. I can help. Let me clear it away…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I will give a cookie to anyone who can come up with a better title for this thing.


	4. What's Kansas?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im so sorry pls dont hate me for being gone for 18 years

* * *

* * *

 

 

I spent at least a week, maybe more, being interrogated. The interrogators were usually a mix of those same people who had been there in the beginning. An incredibly intimidating black woman had stopped in once or twice. She never spoke but I could swear the temperature of the room dropped ten degrees anytime she was present. It was just a little unsettling.

It was after this blur of time that the.... thing came in. Creepy droopy hat kid was with him, as was the red-haired hooded lady, who's name I'd since discovered was Leliana. I don't know what they expected to happen, but I hope the incident was at least memorable.

"What the _fuck_ are you supposed to be, dude?"

The trio all froze, the large...we'll say 'dude'... still halfway through getting the enormous horns of his through the door. I suppose, in hindsight, this might not have been the reaction they expected.

"I mean, I get elves, and I get humans. I would even understand something equally as weird as you. But why the fuck would your character be a huge horned demon-thing that can't even fit through doors?"

It was droopy hat kid who spoke first. His soft-spoken voice managing to penetrate clearly.

"Not our demons, hers."

I was used to the little creep at this point. Used to Leliana as well. I knew what they were doing, anyhow. They came in several times a day, a mix of people, and all asked variations of the same stupid questions, hoping I'd change my story and incriminate myself. If I was lying, it would hopefully reveal incongruent statements. The problem was I wasn't lying, and even if I was, my story wasn't exactly complicated. No, I don't remember my name, or my parents names. I know I'm an only child. I don't know who any of you are or why you're important. I don't know how I got here. I don't know how the mark got on my hand. I don't know what it's supposed to do (but something tells me my interrogators know exactly what it is). I don't know, maybe they just thought I was a really good agent of Kor'ifeus. What a stupid name for their Antagonist. I don't know exactly how they spell it but considering the setting I think I'm pretty spot on with it. Some weird Latin-ie stereotypical bad guy name.

At this point, as far as I was concerned, these people were the guilty ones. Even if they weren't responsible for my being here, they were keeping me against my will. They were kidnappers at best, soon to be murderers at worst. My personal predicament aside, they obviously knew what this thing on my palm IS, and they were refusing to tell me. For all I knew, it was some kind of parasite that the elf had passed on to me. It was wholly ridiculous. I just hoped that the big cow-man wasn't supposed to mean they were about to start physical torture. I don't know what I would say to stop being hurt.

The Cow-Man turned to the kid, his head tilted slightly to the side. I swear those giant-ass horns of his were gonna clothesline someone.

"Cole, you said I would 'help'. This is an unexpected reaction, which I'm sure the Spymaster has already filed away, but it doesn't _help_  anything."

Cole shook his head,

"You help more than you know. She gets more questions. She gets answers, but she doesn't know it yet.." He pointed first to Leliana and then to me. Cryptic little shit. What was that even supposed to mean? I'd get answers? Answers about what, exactly?

Then Leliana continued with the questions the same way she (and anyone else) normally did, with Cow-Man just watching. It was almost as unsettling as when the black woman was in here, and I said so. This made the Cow-Man LAUGH of all things, a big booming one that I felt had to be compensating for something. Or maybe he was trying to lull me into a false sense of security.

"You've had Ma'am in here, Spymaster? Didn't you get enough from THAT conversation?"

Leliana had pursed her lips slightly, but shook her head.

"There are many bases to cover, especially when this girl now wears the mark."

The mark had been the main topic of conversation in every single session. They never answered any of my questions about it, but their questions gave me some answers too. I didn't have much to start with, though. I feel like if I had more of a background to all this, the terminology of everything might make more sense. Either way, I did get some things that I suppose could be considered of importance.

The elf-woman was the Inquisitor and the elf-man was her lover. Leliana, Cullen, Josephine, and Cassandra had been essentially running the Inquisition while she was... basically ignoring life. I wonder if they had suicide watch going on. The most important thing I had deigned from this clusterfuck is that this all felt familiar, felt right somehow. The mark hurt, but something told me that it belonged there, that it was mine. I knew if I ever breathed even an inkling of how I felt, these people might actually kill me. The weapons they carried were no LARP props. They must have been some kind of weird LARP community. Maybe they were so far away from civilization that breaking character would ruin however long they were able to be out in the middle of wherever this was. It was all very selfish of them. I could have had a concussion. I couldn't even remember my name. They should at least have a satellite phone they could use to get me a helicopter to a hospital, for Christ's sake!

I hadn't noticed how quiet it had been in the room. I snapped out of my revere and looked at the trio of... people. They were staring at me, and I wasn't sure why. Maybe, I missed something? It was Leliana who spoke.

"Girl... What is he talking about?"

Okay, definitely must have missed  _something._

"....Who?"

At this, the Cow-Man gave a small chuckle.

"I think she started to tune us out. It's not uncommon, you should know that,"

"Yes, Bull, I know."

At this I couldn't help it, I laughed.

"I'm sorry, your name is BULL? And you're supposed to be a cow-person?! Are you seriously that unimaginative?"

"Actually, it's THE IRON Bull, and for a mercenary group, it's good to keep to things people will remember."

"Mercenaries?"

"Yeah, We're kind of a big deal."

I just shook my head. I more needed him to stop talking. His voice was.... well let's just say he gave Cassandra a run for her money as far as talking went.

"Bull, you should ask more questions."

It was creepy kid. I don't know how he did it but I could have sworn he could read my mind sometimes. In this case, fuck him. If Bull was the one asking questions, I might start tuning out for entirely different reasons... well, as long as I kept my eyes closed. That might be a bit too obvious, though.

Bull squinted slightly and turned to me.

"Alright then, how does the mark feel on your hand? Do you feel powerful?"

That... that was new. No one had ever asked me how it felt. Just demanded to know how it got there, why I took it, and what I planned to do with it.

"Powerful? What about this situations screams 'Position of Power', exactly? I'm here against my will, being interrogated on a daily basis, fed the blandest food I've ever tasted, which alone probably violates the Geneva Convention, and I'm being denied medical care!"

Bull turned to Leliana, but it was Leliana who spoke first,

"She says things like that often, using terms that... aren't terms. As for the food, girl, it's no different than anyone else eats."

"....WHY would you torture your palate like that?!"

"She wants McDonald's"

"Who is MacDonald? Perhaps we should be questioning him as well."

 

* * *

 

 

It was dark out when someone came again. This time it was only Bull. He had my dinner. No one had ever actually brought me dinner before. It had always been a servant who ran out faster than I could even say thank you, so I stopped even trying to be polite ages ago. He set the tray down on the small table against the wall. It was under the window, but you had to actually stand on the table before you could even see out of it, and even then all I'd managed to glimpse was a gloomy sky.

"I brought you something with more flavor. Leliana seems to think you're somehow from a country closer to Qunandar than anyone else, because apparently they've been feeding you typical food from several different countries while you've been here, and dropped various words that you didn't recognise. Basically, they've decided you're not from any country they know of, so you must be from a country we Qunari know of up North somehow. I think it's a load of bullshit. You humans get darker and darker the farther North you go, and you look Ferelden. So, let's see what you think of fried bananas, rice and beans, and hot cocoa."

I'd never sat up so fast in my life.

"Hot. Cocoa?"

"Yes, it's a bean that mixes with sugar and milk and makes a rich sweet confection."

"I KNOW WHAT CHOCOLATE IS."

I practically ran to the small table. The cocoa was perfect, but thicker than I'm used to. The fried bananas were starchy just like they were supposed to be, and rice and beans was just such a staple that I think I cried a little bit when I ate them, even though they didn't have anywhere near enough seasoning. I definitely surprised Bull, because he seemed to think he was giving me the wherever-I-am equivalent to snails or something.

"Viddathari?"

"....Who?"

"No, you. Are you Viddathari? Or, no, maybe your parents? Your reaction tells me you were raised eating food like this. Your parents were Viddathari? You're no where near dark enough to be from Rivain, and no one who isn't a Vashoth Qunari is allowed on Par Vollen. So how in the hell are you acting like a Qunari soldier who just got a homecooked meal for the first time in 5 years?"

"Honestly, I don't eat Mexican food, even tex-mex, that often. This is just the most reognizable food I've been given."

"....Mexican? That's what you call this?"

Kill me. I was going to kill this bull-man. I was going to kill the creep. I was going to do everything I could to kill all of them and force them to either kill me or send me the fuck HOME already.

"You KNOW it's Mexican, and you know what Mexican food _is_ , you basically, and use the term basically to the fullest of it's definition, just FED IT TO ME. Look, I'm fucking done with this bullshit. So done. I want you to use a phone or a pigeon or whatever the fuck you idiots have in this godforsaken what-ever-the-fuck-this-is, contact the coast guard, or the embassy, or WHATEVER, and get me home!"

Bull let me have this outburst. Afterward, it was silent in the little cell for a heartbeat, while I sat there trying very hard to get my emotions under control. After that heartbeat, though, Bull must have come to some kind of decision, or something. There was something to his face, as scarred up and prosthetic as it looked, that told me there was a lot behind that pointless bulk. He stood up, stretched, and walked to the door, leaving the dishes.

"Follow me."

Then, he left, and I followed.

 

* * *

 

 

My name is unknown. My parents are unknown, but I know I'm not an orphan. I remember my home, I remember my world. I know technology, and I know math, and science. I was raised with a love and respect for science. I was also raised by a Trekkie of a father. I've been fascinated with space, and the stars, and the prospect of space travel, since I was old enough to understand it.

 

**_Earth does not have two moons._ **

 

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**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heh..heh....... It's only been.... What..... 6 months? give or take? heh e he h e he h eh 
> 
> dont hate me
> 
> Turns out a side effect of my psych meds is that it fucks with my muse. I needed said meds because of the at-home life I was dealing with. Being no longer in my at-home life, I have decided my meds are no longer neccesary. So, my muse has come back full swing (I actually have like 4 chapters of a completely new fic written that I'm now refusing to touch because lets be real I have work to do with my other fics)
> 
> I just polished this chapter, and I'm happy with it, but I don't have the next ready yet. Ideally, I'm hoping to start posting at least once a week on this story, and once a week with Damien and Bull. I'm a shameless Bullrier so sue me.
> 
> As it is, this chapter is unbeta'd, so all mistakes are my own, and hopefully understandable. I hope you enjoyed this chapter.


	5. Bill Gates was a Dwarf, it's Canon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What another chapter, what is this?
> 
> As usual, not beta'd.

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I was silent the whole way back to my room. Bull might have said a few things to me on the way back but I don't remember. He left me there, and I heard the click of the lock. How comforting, to know that nothing has changed. Too bad literally everything has changed.

I sat on my bed, back against the wall, my right shoulder pressed firmly against the wall on that side. I pressed myself into the corner, drew my knees to my chest, and stared at my toes. I ran through every possible explanation of two moons I could think of. Bull hadn't reacted to the moons. Not at all. In fact he seemed to think it was the Army outside the walls of their mountain castle that would shock me, or something. It did. The whole set up had felt astoundingly realistic. I began to wonder if this was some kind of sick and twisted reality TV show. But something had felt off. It had to be around 8 or 9, because it was full on night, but there was snow laying around. It was a mountain, too, though, so I'd guess that it had to be October or November.

It was so bright, though. Brighter than a full moon, but there were no torches lit. There was a little bit of life flowing about, but it was obvious most of the inhabitants had retired for the night. So, I looked up and I promptly almost fell down. Bull, somehow, had noticed my... distress, we'll call it distress, and gripped my arms, keeping me from sitting down on the floor of the battlement. I tuned him out, I was busy.

There were _two moons_.

It couldn't be a hologram, because the technology for one that advanced didn't exist yet. It couldn't have been some alien ship or something along those lines, because it was seen as normal to these people. Maybe I was hallucinating. Anything could have been in the food they've been feeding me. The problem with that, most probable, theory, was that there were no other hallucinations, or even the hinting of such. No shadows, no odd noises, no warps in my vision. Nothing that could explain that moon, except that it was a real moon, in a real sky. One of them did look like the moon from home, though a bit smaller. Or maybe it wasn't smaller, I wouldn't have been able to tell, because it was the other moon that had me wanting to scream. It was huge. I wonder if it was bigger than my moon had been to the dinosaurs. It didn't matter. These weren't my moons, but hologram was, in my mind, still a reasonable explanation. So, I needed the stars.

I needed to get out of this room, and look at those stars again. If I could find Orion, or the Big Dipper, or.... No, I had to go for ANY Constellations. Some would be bright in the northern hemisphere this time of year, but wouldn't be visible in the southern. If I was in the southern hemisphere, I'd figure out how I could have travelled that another time. Would I even be able to see constellations around that moon? Yes... Yes, it wasn't that big. I would manage.

I had no tools. The dishes had been cleared while Bull took me on that tour. They never left anything around for me to use as a weapon, or in this case, a lockpick. No comb, no pen, nothing. I wasn't even in my clothes. They'd taken everything while I'd been passed out. Usually, I slept and was woken up by the breakfast-servant in the morning. Tomorrow, I'd be waiting for her.

I didn't have an alarm of any kind. I most certainly didn't trust myself to wake up before the servant. So I waited. The door would open, effectively hiding me behind it. I just had to hope the girl didn't look farther into my bed and find that I's used my pillow and sheets to make a body shape, and then moved my blankets to look like the bundle had pulled them close. I did an okay job, but not if anyone tried to actually touch me.

Of course, sitting alone by oneself for hours on end, trying not to sleep, does make one think. Why should I try to run out the door? The servant would call a guard or something, and while there had been no guards when Bull took me out that didn't mean there wouldn't be some tomorrow. So, instead I climbed back into my bed. I would take what I could from my meals. Two forks, two knives. How hard could it be to pick a lock, right?

 

* * *

   
Very hard. Picking locks is very hard. I'd broken all but one tong off the forks intentionally hoping they'd work better. They went into the lock just fine but I couldn't figure out what I was supposed to do with them. The knives were completely useless because they were too wide, but I had weapons now so I guess that's something. The extra tongs were too short, they'd get stuck. I'd wiggled and rotated and done everything I could think of but I had no idea how to pick a lock.

It was probably around ten before I finally gave up and sat back, staring at the door. I'd watched videos on lock picking ages ago but this was not at all the situation it presented.

Of course, then the door opened. There was no click of the lock. The stupid thing hadn't even been locked this whole time. Standing in the door was none other than KreepKid.

"Stars move but not a lot. You would see the shapes but they aren't right. Aren't the same. You wouldn't understand them."

"Now what are you on about?"

"Follow."

And he turned. I didn't know if this was a play by Leliana or not but I needed to see. Just in case.

He took me to the top of a battlement. I wasn't sure if it was the same one as last night, because this castle was huge. I looked up, ready to either scream or scream. They would be my stars or they wouldn't, right? The moons looked the same, just in slightly different places. That was normal, since the time difference was about two hours, by my guess. The stars though. There were so many. I suppose I should have expected that. Light pollution does tend to make it easier to pick out the brighter constellations though.

Just like when I was a child, I picked out Orion's belt first. The easiest. I couldn't remember what that meant about hemispheres or time of year. I didn't care. I could seen the rest of Orion now too, but it felt off. The belt was wider than it should have been, making the hunter look less like an hourglass and more rectangular. There was also a missing star. The upper right corner of his torso. The star was gone.

"It was already gone. You only saw its shadow."

I ignored KreepKid. His words did make sense, though. The stars we see, are, in a way, a shadow. We're looking back in time, seeing what they looked like billions of years ago, trillions in a lot of instances. These stars were familiar but to me they were distorted. How was that possible? Maybe I really was hallucinating. For a star to disappear, its light would need to run out. I don't know how that works but didn't stars die with an explosion? Wasn't it fairly slow? There was no way that star could have died in the time I'd been out. Maybe I was in 'Hell' longer than I realized? I don't know. I don't even know what I don't know. I want answers, but I don't even know what questions I'm supposed to ask.

"Please take me back to my bed."

Without a word he turned and walked away, and I followed him.

 

* * *

 

 

The next morning, there was no breakfast. Seeing as how dinner had been a rough brown bread with horrible flavor, a room temperature lump of squishy cheese(I asked, and I still don't know if that was cheese), and a pile of un-seasoned slightly overcooked vegetables, no breakfast was a crime.

Lunch didn't come either.

About mid-afternoon, if I had to guess, my door opened to a small elf servant. She had me follow her, and praise the lord I got a bath. I swear the water was the nastiest darkest bath water I'd ever had by the time I was done. The servant girl had stayed and helped me with the bottles. I wonder if Leliana told her that I couldn't read, or something. It was true I couldn't read their letters, but I think the reason might have been more that Bull and maybe KreepKid told her I wasn't gonna know any of this shit.

I think Bull's a lot smarter than he looks. I had a couple days to think about it, and the way he spoke, the way he watched, and just the fact that Leliana had him come in during one of my interrogation sessions all spoke to him being smart, at least in some ways.

After my bath, the servant girl helped me dress, in an actual dress. Before I'd been wearing light cotton garments, no dyes or patterns. This dress was, by comparison, much nicer. I was under no delusion that it was something you'd put a noble woman into or something. It was just a plain green gown, made of a thick fabric. It had ties in the back to nip it in without the use of a corset or belt. There was no fancy embroidery. It was just a straight forward gown.

The servant girl led me through a series of hallways, until finally we arrived at some sort of great hall. I swear it could put Hogwarts to shame. The entire hall was huge, first of all. To my left, at the end of the hall, was an obvious throne. To my right was a giant door that I had to assume went outside, perhaps into one of the tiered courtyards. Yes. Courtyards. What kind of castle had multiple courtyards?

Anyway, from the door to the throne was a clear path, which was raised about a foot high. Then there was a single step up to it. The path was probably about ten feet wide. Then, there was still another 20-30 feet from the edge of the path to the walls of this halls. That lower space had tables and benches. The foot of each table was pushes to the wall, and the head of the table was about four feet from the path. So each table had to be well over 20 feet long, with it's own respective benches. At the moment the tables were clear, but there were still plenty of people around the hall.

The servant girl led me out to the path, in between two of the huge tables. From the path I could see there were a good ten tables on each side of the hall, maybe more. There were six fireplaces, too. Three on each side of the hall. Two in front of the throne, just shy of the tables, two in the center of the hall, inset in the walls, and two by the door. One of the tables by the door, and by one of the fireplaces, appeared to be segregated. There was nothing actually splitting the table, but half of it was clear, and the other half looked like it had been turned into some sort of office. Papers, quills, inkwells, a bowl of sand, even a clock that had to be at least 2 feet tall.

The girl turned me toward the throne and let me up the pathway before we turned to the left, back toward the wall we'd come out of. I did get a chance to see that there were three low tables in front of the throne, with pillows and blankets. Because the throne was on a high platform, even the low tables still had a clear view of the hall.

Back between two tables, and then through a thick wooden door, into a rather cozy library. At least, I thought it was a library until we got around two book-lined pillars and I saw the huge fireplace, with two overstuffed chairs, and the desk in the corner. This was actually someone's office. Actually, it was Josephine's office, I assume, since she was the one behind the desk.

"Oh, is it that time already? My apologies, I had hoped to have tea ready before you got here."

"It's.... fine. I'm not much of a tea-drinker anyway."

"Oh, well, I'll have them add juice for you, unless you had another drink in mind?"

"Actual-....Actually, no, no, juice is just fine."

With a small nod, Josephine dismissed the servant girl, likely to return with 'tea'.

I was starving. I didn't want tea, or juice. I wanted a giant pizza with sausage and mushrooms, spinach, banana peppers, a little bit of feta, and a little bit of fresh tomatoes. Something told me if I wanted food like that, I'd have to hunt down the herbs and ingredients and make it myself.

Josephine gestured to one of the over-stuffed chairs, as she worked her way over with what looked like a medieval clipboard. I had to admit, the thing was genius. I don't think that candle was for light, but if it was to melt wax, then she basically had an entire desk with her at all times. I said as much, asking if they were common or if she was the mind behind the invention. She was.

"Now, I'm afraid this puts me at a horrible disadvantage. You know my name, but I don't know what to refer to you as."

I bit my lip. This was something I'd spent a lot of time thinking about, because she was right, I needed a name.

"I'm afraid I don't know how names work for you. The name Josephine, I assume that's a personal name, not a family name?"

"Correct, my full name is Josephine Montilyet."

"Montilyet? That sounds French."

"Ah... It's Antivan. There are similarities to Orlesian, however...."

"Orlesian.... Do you speak.... Orlesian?"

"Oh, yes! It was required by my tutors. Do you?"

"No, I don't. If you could speak it, though, I want to hear it. I think it might be like my French."

"I... I was just speaking it."

"I only....it just sounded like English to me."

"...Eenglish?"

"Ah... This is going to be difficult."

"Right well, w- .... Ah, you are much more clever than I gave you credit for. I really do need to have a name, though."

 

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**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please lemme know what you think about Cole. I don't know how confident I am about writing him.


End file.
